论英语交际中的情态与礼貌

On the Relationship between Modality and Politeness

礼貌是个普遍现象。礼貌的产生在于交互,而情态在礼貌产生中起了重要作用。该文对情态的概念、情态的分类、情态动词表示的间接性与礼貌之间的关系作了论述,从而得出结论:情态和礼貌密切相连,它们看上去甚至是一种某个情态表达式的形式显性化程度和它表示的情态类型与它传达的礼貌程度之间的直接关系。

Politeness is a universal phenomenon. The occurrence of politeness lies in interaction. However, modality plays an important part in the occurrence of politeness. This paper discusses the concept and classification of modality, the indirectness expressed by modal verbs and the relationship between indirectness and politeness, and thus concludes that modality and politeness are closely related and even appear to be a direct relationship between, on one hand, the degree of formal explicitness of a given modal expression and the type of modality it expresses and, on the other hand, the degree of politeness it conveys.